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Omagh families to confront Ahern and garda chief over investigation

THE taoiseach and Noel Conroy, the garda commissioner, will hold separate meetings with the relatives of victims of the Omagh bombing next week.

They are likely to face intense criticism of the Irish government’s role in the investigation of the Real IRA atrocity.

Michael Gallagher, who will lead the delegation meeting Bertie Ahern on March 11, said: “I will be telling him that the Irish government has so far lacked the political will to resolve the largest mass murder in modern British or Irish history.”

Victor Barker, whose 12-year-old son James was killed in the 1998 blast, will meet Conroy the following day.

Victims’ families are unhappy that gardai have not made two key witnesses available for questioning in Northern Ireland, and did not carry out DNA checks requested by the PSNI last June.

They are also critical of the Nally report, which examined accusations that gardai allowed the bomb